Daniel

“As seen from the above, the war of each against all is not the law of nature. Mutual aid is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle, and that law will become still more apparent when we have analyzed some other associations of birds and those”
― Pyotr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution

“Once again," he said, "we have failed pathetically. Quite pathetically."
"That," said Ford quietly, "is because we don't care enough. I told you."
He swung his feet up onto the intrument panel and picked fitfully at something on one of his fingernails.
"But unless we determine to take action," said the old man querulously, as if struggling against something deeply insouciant in his nature, "then we shall be destroyed; we shall all die. Surely we care about that?"
"Not enough to want to get killed over it," said Ford. He put on a sort of hollow smile and flipped it around the room at anyone who wanted to see it.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“In addition, the Non-Profit Industrial Complex promotes a social movement culture that is non-collaborative, narrowly focused, and competitive. To retain the support of benefactors, groups must compete with each other for funding by promoting only their own work, whether or not their organizing strategies are successful. This culture prevents activists from having collaborative dialogues where we can honestly share our failures as well as our successes. In addition, after being forced to frame everything we do as a "success", we become stuck in having to repeat the same strategies because we insisted to funders they were successful, even if they were not. Consequently, we become inflexible rather than fluid and everchanging our strategies, which is what a movement for social transformation really requires. And as we become more concerned with attracting funders than with organizing mass-based movements, we start niche marketing the work of our organizations. Framing our organizations as working on a particular issue or a particular strategy, we lose perspective on the larger goals of our work. Thus, niche marketing encourages us to build a fractured movement rather than mass-based movements for social change.”
― Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

“If the parents of schoolchildren in an elementary school in Austin worry most about the dangers their children face crossing busy streets near the school, they getting a stop sign installed or a traffic pattern changed will be their first goal. Other aims and actions may follow, once they experience their collective power. "Winning creates imagination," says Sister Judy Donovan, leading organizer of Valley Interfaith. "Once they see they can get a stop sign, they start thinking about what might be done in the school." Successful action gives people lessons in their own power.”
― Robert D. Putnam, Better Together